Thursday, October 16, 2008

Media Scrutiny and "Joe the Plumber"

To begin with, I guess the relevance of "Joe the Plumber" to this blog is that he voiced his pride in the job that U.S. soldiers are doing in Iraq. I think this is an attitude out there in America that recognizes the fact that Iraq has turned a corner towards the better for some time now. Thus, the efforts made by some activist reporters at conveying a different, darker image of what's going on in Iraq hasn't fooled everyone. Good.

But what's ridiculous is how much scrutiny "Joe the Plumber" is getting: the media has turned this personal, and they are ever so desperate to cut him down, especially since he seems to be leaning towards McCain. The narrative is downright mean and demeaning; everything goes, with dollops of disdain.

It is a reflex inferred by the notion that anyone who hasn't yet bought into Obama is somehow misguided, even nefarious.

Yet it is odd that when Senator Obama's past is looked at with more scrutiny, some in the media and some of Obama's other surrogates immediately scream "racism" or accuse those asking the questions of distracting 'Joe Public' from the larger issues.

Well, "Joe the Plumber" did ask about one of those "larger issues" but all we seem to be getting is the nitty-gritty of his life-story.

3 Comments:

Nibras;You want nefarious? Try the mandating of stupid credit decisions by Freddy and Fannie for strictly political purposes. There was/is more than greed behind that. I invite all to search "Cloward-Piven". Or read this:http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/barack_obama_and_the_strategy.html .

The current Economist headlines "Capitalism at Bay". At bay, indeed; and not by anonymous forces of human vagary. '... Rudy Giuliani cited Cloward and Piven by name as being responsible for "an effort at economic sabotage." He also credited Cloward-Piven with changing the cultural attitude toward welfare from that of a temporary expedient to a lifetime entitlement, an attitude which in-and-of-itself has caused perhaps the greatest damage of all.

Cloward and Piven looked at this strategy as a gold mine of opportunity. Within the newly organized groups, each offensive would find an ample pool of foot soldier recruits willing to advance its radical agenda at little or no pay, and expand its base of reliable voters, legal or otherwise. The radicals' threatening tactics also would accrue an intimidating reputation, providing a wealth of opportunities for extorting monetary and other concessions from the target organizations. In the meantime, successful offensives would create an ever increasing drag on society. As they gleefully observed:

/Moreover, this kind of mass influence is cumulative because benefits are continuous. Once eligibility for basic food and rent grants is established, the drain on local resources persists indefinitely./ '

There is more going on than financial recklessness and malfeasance. There are EXPLICIT political root causes.